


Once Upon A Time In A Lab

by cleo4u2



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: I don't know, Jealous!Steve, M/M, fuck bad dudes, germs are scary, it's a thing, random lab tech is also a boss, the winter soldier is a boss, this fic is stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 07:16:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15552480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleo4u2/pseuds/cleo4u2
Summary: THIS ENTIRE SCENARIO IS STUPID - THIS FIC IS STUPID - SUSPEND ALL DISBELIEF





	Once Upon A Time In A Lab

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to our usual beta, , [NurseDarry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry/profile), because she is a perfect human being that agreed to beta kinks she doesn’t like too much for us. All hail the Glow Cloud!

0700

The men armed with rifles, clothed in military fatigues, with bandanas covering their faces storm Shakes Pharmaceuticals. They raid the upper floors, effortlessly killing any security or scientists who stand in their way. Those who do not resist are rounded up in the second floor break room, screamed at in languages most of them don’t understand. A few do, however. They’re forced to translate the barked, harsh orders and demands.

0720

Forcing the hostages to cooperate, they men make the owner himself take the leader of the terrorists, because what else could they be, down to the secure labs built into the ground below the building where the research into deadly diseases is performed. The first ring of security is fairly simple. It’s just the biometric scanner and a key card. The second is an airlock with several security guards. It’s the third security ring that’s the real show-stopper, but none of them are built for an assault. They’re built to keep things _in_ , not _out_.

The elevator’s descent is what alerts Dr. Karen Vencasa that something isn’t right. Inside the third ring, she looks up from her research on the newest strain of H1N1 and watches a huge man, over six feet tall, push the tiny Dr. Tae Shakes from the doors with what she thinks is an AK-50. Not that she knows a lot about guns, but that’s what it looks like in the movies. Above the red bandana he wears, the man’s black eyes are cold and shiny.

No sound can reach her in the sealed lab, but she watches the fiery flash of the rifle as he fires precisely four times. Each bullet - and aren’t AK’s automatic? - strikes their target, taking off heads, or simply popping them like watermelons under Gallagher's hammer. Karen jumps at each flash, frozen with the impossibility of what is happening before her very eyes.

Then Dr. Shakes is leading him, hands shaking violently, towards the second ring of security. He’s splattered with blood, but Karen can still not believe he’s letting the maniac through. The worst of the known diseases on the planet are stored in the huge refrigerator behind her. Some they’re not even supposed to have any more. Dr. Shakes knows this. They _all_ know. It’s not possible to forget, but he’s letting the maniac in with them. With her.

Panicking, Karen grabs the vial of blood she had been sampling and smashes it on the floor. Glass shatters, and the incredibly sensitive instruments in the room detect the virus now floating in the air with her within milliseconds. Alarms blare, screaming through the entire building as red lights flash, bathing every white surface of the lab so it looks like she’d dropped a truck load of blood, not a small vial. The third ring of security locks down, sealing the steel doors to and from the airlock. 

No one in. No one out.

The maniac shakes his hostage, waving the gun at the alarm and the lights. She watches Dr. Shakes say something, clearly terrified, and then the maniac shoots the flashing lights. It doesn’t stop the sirens, so she can’t tell what the purpose was. Perhaps there was none.

With nowhere to run, Karen watches as Dr. Shakes leads the maniac to the control room. 

“Karen,” Dr. Shakes says into the microphone. He never calls her doctor and it’s as infuriating now as it is at any other time, despite the fear making her heart pound. “Karen, we need you to signal the all clear and let us in there.”

“I can’t do that,” she calls, the microphones in the room transmitting her voice to the control booth, “You know I can’t do that.”

Before Dr. Shakes can reply, the maniac shoves him away from the mic.

“Karen, is it?” he says and sounds remarkably normal.

“Dr. Karen Vencasa,” she corrects because why not since she’s pretty sure she’s going to die. Not from the virus, no. Even if she wasn’t encased in a proper hazmat suit, the particular strain wasn’t all that dangerous. If she dies today, she knows it will be by this man’s hands.

“Dr. Vencasa,” he says, and she’s struck by his polite tone, “You are obviously a very brave woman, but you cannot keep me out of that lab for long. If you let me in, I can assure that no harm comes to you. If you don’t-” 

He raises his gun and shoots Dr. Shakes through the temple. Karen is not ashamed by her own scream. It was horrible enough to watch the security guards die, they were coworkers she saw every day. Dr. Shakes was worse because she had eaten dinner in his home, was friends with his wife, knew his kids. Now his brain was painting the walls of the control room.

Unable to speak, Karen shakes her head.

“That’s a shame, Dr. Vencasa,” the maniac says, in that same insanely reasonable tone.

The conversation appears to be over. He kneels, does something she can’t see, and leaves again. It would be a relief, except when he leaves the control booth, Karen sees Dr. Shakes hand, severed at the wrist, in the maniac’s. 

He’ll be back.

0745

The maniac returns with four other men. They’re dressed similarly, though shorter than the maniac, and all wearing different colored bandanas and lugging two suitcases between them. She can’t see what they’re doing and no one attempts to speak to her again. 

Finding a corner of the lab, she sits on the floor and wraps her arms around her knees. There are plenty of ways to get into the lab, if you don’t care to keep the seals intact. Welding torch, explosives, acid to the rubber. Karen doesn’t know which the maniac is having his men use, but she knows it won’t be long now.

0747

“Can you hear me?”

Karen looks up at the ceiling, startled. There are several cameras constantly monitoring the lab, so she guesses whoever owns that deep, rich voice, must be watching her. The maniac and his soldiers aren’t in the control room, so they’re not the ones talking to her.

“I’ve tapped into the communication system. They can’t hear me, or you right now, but don’t let them see you talking to me.”

“Wh-who are you?”

“That’s not important,” he says, there’s an odd pause and he seems to change his mind. “You can call me James. What’s your name?”

“Karen. Dr. Karen Vencasa.”

“Okay, Karen, I’m going to get you out of there, but you’re gonna have to give me a hand. I need you to stall for me. Think you can do that?”

“Do I have much of a choice?”

James’ laugh is rich, warm, if a little rusty. 

“Not really, no. Captain America is busy, so I’m all you’ve got.”

“Right,” Karen stands up, “I’m on it.”

Turning away from the maniac and his goons, she goes to the giant steel doors that hold the world’s scariest diseases. There are many options, so she chooses carefully. He talked to her for only a few moments, but she takes confidence from James’ disembodied voice. She’s not alone, and she’s not giving up without a fight.

0800

“Hey! Hey! I know you can hear me out there!” Karen shouts. 

Only one of the men the maniac brought back with him using Dr. Shakes hand looks up. The rest continue doing whatever it is they’re doing, but the maniac looks at her through the plated glass windows.

“I know you can hear me!” she shouts again, “Come over here!”

The maniac’s eyes glitter, but he walks back to the control room.

“Have you changed your mind, Dr. Vencasa?” he asks.

“No,” she takes a deep breath and holds up a vial. “This is an airborne strain of ebola. If you come through that door, I will smash this. Then if any of you come in here, you die.”

“There are suits out here as well, Dr. Vencasa,” he says reasonably.

“True,” Karen tries to shrug casually, “but there’s every chance you’ll still catch the disease when you get out of them again. It’s got a 95% mortality rate. You want to take your chances with that, go ahead.”

While he stares at her, Karen’s heart tries to beat out of her chest. It’s a bluff, but she prays he doesn’t know that. The Ebola will kill them, but it can only last outside of a host for about a half-hour. She can only hope he doesn’t know that. There’s also the chance, slim as it is, that she’ll start a national epidemic that will wipe out most of the population of North and South America, so breaking the vial is not really something she wants to do.

The maniac pulls down his bandana, exposing a surprisingly attractive face with a strong jaw and pouty lips. 

“Then I will have a five percent chance of living. You, Dr. Vencasa, have none.”

Sneering, he rips the mic from the console and stalks away.

“Hey James?” Karen calls, watching the maniac head to the lockers and start pulling out suits. 

“Yes, Karen?”

“I think I bought us thirty minutes. Maybe less. When they figure those suits out, they’re coming in.”

“That’s plenty of time,” James replies, and she feels calmed by his calm. “And Karen? I don’t have a suit. Please don’t drop that vial.”

For some reason, that makes her laugh.

0835

Karen cannot look away from the windows, despite knowing the men working out there are going to break into her lab and kill her. They’re nearly finished, so now she knows they plan to blow the air locks. The first one is already gone, lying inert on the ground with the maniac standing atop it in his hazmat suit. He watches his men in their suits set up the next charges, ignoring Karen. 

The fixation is the only reason she sees James come for her. A black shadow detaches itself from the open elevator ceiling, dropping silently to the ground in a crouch. She assumes it’s silent, since she can’t hear anything outside the room she’s in, but the maniac and his guys don’t even glance in James’ direction. Staying crouched, he creeps forward along the hallway and into the second security ring.

That’s where Karen gets her first look at the man and starts when she recognizes him. The crack about Captain America now makes more sense. James has been all over the news the last few years, fighting at the superhero’s side. Karen knows his name is James, but she’s far more familiar with him as the controversial Winter Soldier. Watching him now, she can understand the description of him as a dangerous, psychotic murderer. Every movement is careful, deliberate, muscles operating more like a machine than a person as he glides over the floor, pulls a handgun that looks way too tiny in his big hands, and opens fire.

The first two shots take out the soldiers priming the explosives against the door. Unlike when the maniac killed people, the two men just collapse to the ground as if asleep. The little gun swings toward the maniac, but the man has already ducked down the hall to the control room. Unphased, James targets the other two soldiers and smoothly takes aim, ending their lives without any hesitation. At least, no hesitation she can see. She can’t see James’ face behind the black glasses and face mask and she wishes she could. He’s on her side, but the figure he strikes in the gear is a little terrifying.

Eyes widening with fear, Karen watches a small, black, orb roll between James’ feet. Even though he can’t hear her, she slams her palm against the plate glass and screams for him to look out. Maybe he can hear her, because his gaze snaps to her, follows her pointing finger, and he dives for cover. She screams again when the grenade goes off, because she has no idea if he survives. The scream freezes in her throat as the maniac steps from the hallway, looking no worse for wear for losing four men, and pries the explosives’ trigger from a dead hand. 

Spinning around, her eyes dart for cover and find the corner she had hidden herself in earlier. It’s the best option she has, and she crouches down just in time for the second airlock door to go flying into the lab. It smashes nearly a million dollars’ worth of equipment, then slides to a stop in front of the fridge. 

Though there’s nowhere to go, Karen still tries to back up into the wall. That’s where the maniac finds her. He smiles behind his faceplate, draws his weapon, and is tackled bodily by a black streak. 

The gun goes off and Karen screams again before getting up, intending to scramble away from the two men on the floor so not to become a liability. There’s no point, and she stops once on her feet. Though he struggles, the maniac is easily wrapped in James’ inescapable grasp. He slides behind the maniac, the metal arm coming behind his head, and holds it there with his flesh arm. 

Dropping his gun, the maniac draws a wicked looking knife. Once again wide-eyed, Karen scrambles for the syringe she had filled earlier from the fridge and turns back, expecting to see James bleeding. He isn’t; the thick, muscular legs are wrapped around the maniac’s torso, pinning his arms down. The man still struggles, though, so Karen drops to her knees and slams the needle into the maniac’s thigh before pumping him full of as much morphine as the syringe had been able to hold.

The maniac’s struggles stop, but James holds on for another few seconds before pulling away. 

“Thanks,” he says and she can’t be afraid of him, not with a voice so warm and rich.

“No time for that,” she says briskly.

Grabbing James’ wrist, she pulls him from the lab. He tenses, but goes, following her to the decontamination room. It’s really just a large shower split in two, located in the second security ring. They’re supposed to strip off, go through decon, then leave for the third ring. With the airlock blown, they aren’t _forced_ to, but there’s no way she’s letting James just walk away without the procedure. He saved her life, potentially millions more, and she’ll be damned if he dies of some rare disease on her watch.

“Strip,” she commands even as she pulls off the faceplate of her suit and starts stripping down to the skintight suit underneath. 

“I don’t think-” James starts to protest.

“Listen to me,” Karen says sharply, “You just entered a room where we regularly experiment with lethal diseases, any number of which you can potentially contract. You are not wearing the appropriate protective clothing, and even if you were, we still go through decontamination after entering the lab. So, strip. We’ll steal someone else’s clothes for you until I can get your gear taken care of.”

James pulls off the glasses, revealing deep blue eyes that are more uncertain than anything else. 

“I can’t keep my gear?”

“You could,” Karen says, “I won’t stop you, if you insist. Only, I’ve grown rather fond of you in the last twenty minutes and I’d really prefer it if you didn’t die.”

“I can’t really get sick,” he says, though he pulls off the mask as well, revealing a face as handsome as Captain America’s, if roguish.

“Supposedly,” she argues, “Have you ever been in contact with someone with, say, ebola? I’m not eager to see how your super-serum holds up against the kind of things we keep in that fridge. I’ll go first, show you how it’s done, okay?”

Though he frowns, James nods, and Karen strips the rest of the way down. Then she shoves her suit into the bag necessary for clean-up and climbs into the shower. After being sprayed from all angles with foam, the shower switches to water and pounds her skin. It strips away any germs that could linger, killing or simply blasting them away. Then she hops out, grabs one of the clean towels and wraps herself in it.

James wears an expression of surprise, already stripped down to just his underwear.

“That’s it?” he asks.

“That’s it.”

“Does it really even matter with the seals blown on the inner door?”

Grabbing another towel, she shoos him toward the shower.

“There’s negative air pressure drawing everything inward, nothing outward, so we’re safe as long as you _get in the shower_.”

James hesitates for another moment, then strips down and shuffles awkwardly into the shower, hands over his groin. As attractive as he is, this is definitely not about sex, and Karen makes it a point not to stare. She still has to look, through, and there are so many muscles she really hadn’t thought that were possible.

“Hands over your head,” she instructs and turns on the shower. 

As the foam starts up, she looks pointedly away and starts drying her hair. When it’s as good as it gets, she starts going through her coworker’s lockers for something James can wear. He’s a big guy, but she finds some sweats that might work. Grabbing a fresh towel as well, she waits for him to get out and holds up the fluffy white cloth.

James barely has it in his hand when an alarmed voice from behind them says, “Bucky?”

As though she’s suddenly burst into flames, James takes a huge step away from Karen.

“This is not what it looks like!” he insists.

Karen turns to find Captain America standing in the doorway to the decontamination room. Instead of the friendly face she’s seen in documentaries, he looks furious.

“It had better not be,” Captain America growls.

“Oh,” Karen says, then, “Oh! You two are together?”

They don’t answer. It’s a lot like she’s not there at all.

“Nothing happened!” James insists and his posture is almost afraid. For an assassin, it’s more than a little telling. “Steve, I swear, it was just a decontamination shower.”

“James was in the main lab without a suit,” Karen says and throws the sweats at the man in question since he was too far away to be handed them. They hit him in the face and he quickly yanks them down and starts hopping into them. 

Captain America’s posture goes from angry to concerned in a heartbeat.

“What? Buck, why would you do that?”

“There wasn’t really a choice, Steve,” James says sharply. 

“He’s fine,” Karen says. “Probably. Now, you boys mind? I’d like to get dressed.”

The sweats are too small, hiked up on James’ calves, and sitting low on his hips, but he lets Captain America take his arm and they go into the hallway. The last she sees of them is the Captain’s arm around James’ waist as they head back into the hall. He seems to be trying to offer comfort now for his earlier assumptions, though James still seems nervous. 

Karen has to smile. How many people get to see this side of the super heroes? She bets not many.

**Author's Note:**

> Come and visit me on Tumblr
> 
>  
> 
> [cleo4u2](http://cleo4u2.tumblr.com)


End file.
